I like most of what I’m seeing, and am thinking of moving away from Scrivener and using the pro version of this, but am having a few problems.
I’m trying to change the titles of the chapters. While most of the time, I would use Chapter 1, chapter 2, etc, I do always have a prologue and often an epilogue.
As soon as I try to change the chapter name, strange things start to happen. The table of contents does.t seem to like it, as it starts looking very different, and when I try to move chapters around, they start to become sub-headings of the renamed chapter. That’s when I am able to cvhange it, without it suddenly moving into the previous chapter or becoming standard text.
Is there a simple way of just changing the chapter title? A right click on the sidebar would be good.
The easiest way to achieve what you want to do is utilize the Styles formatting. You can create your own heading style for the prologue/epilogue, based on the numbered chapter format you are using for the rest of the chapters, but with the automatic numbering removed.
To do this open the Styles dialog by clicking this icon:
Make sure the “Select” field shows the numbered chapter heading you are using, e.g. Chapter Numbered.
Then, in the “Name” field, enter a new name for your stye, e.g. Chapter Prologue, and click “New”.
Go to the “Enumeration/Table of Contents” tab and delete the chapter numbering from the “Format description” field . All other heading attributes will remain the same (unless you want to change them).
This style can now be applied to your prologue & epilogue headings. When you change the heading style, the “Chapter 1” text, for example, will disappear. Simply replace it your prologue or epilogue title.
This new style will also appear in the dropdown list:
When you update the table of contents, the chapters should all appear in order:
For more information on using Styles,we have a Wiki article here.
With regards to moving chapters around, the easiest way to do this is via the Navigator. You can simply use the mouse to pick up a chapter then drag and drop it (including all associated text) to the new position. With a numbered chapter style, Papyrus Author will automatically renumber the chapters to be in sequence after a move.
Thanks for the info! This will be great when I start working on my Novel. I mostly write Children’s picture books. Is there a way to remove the Chapter title?
If you mean the automatically numbered title “Chapter 1”, yes there is.
The default styles “Chapter” and “Heading” have no default text, so you can use those or base a completely new heading style on one of them. Just follow the same steps as you did to create the prologue/epilogue heading. As long as the “Format description” field on the “Enumeration/Table of Contents” tab is empty, there will be no default text entered.
If you don’t want chapter titles at all, you don’t have to use them.
Have you checked out our templates? Under New Project there is an XL format for children’s books. It currently uses the default numbered chapters, but these can be changed as described above.
If this doesn’t answer your question, give me a bit more detail on what you’re looking for and we’ll explain how to do it
Please, I’m really loving this software, but you have got to come up with an easier way to create a diversified TOC. One with prologue, epilogue, characters names, parts etc.
Hi
Starting here and using another language.
So, how can I change language for ‘chapters’ ? I’ve already change the language for the project but the chapter heading is still coming in EN.
If you are writing the entire document in a different language, you can set the language as follows:
Under Options / Preferences / Spell Checking untick the box “Apply this language to any document, override text language”.
This needs to be unticked to be able to change the language selection in the next dialogue.
Then, go to Text / Language and Hyphenation. In this dialogue you can set the language for the whole document. Here I selected German.
If you have some parts of the document in English and some in another language, you can specify which parts of the document are in a different language. HIghlight the area of text - including the chapter headings then select your text language:
Note that you can also access the Preferences options from this dialogue (Global Default Language).
You can read more about these options in our Wiki article here.
I see what you mean - you wanted to change the word “Chapter”.
This is defaulted from the heading style you are using.
Just to confirm - if you are using the default numbered styles, e.g. “Chapter Numbered”, this text is found on the “Enumeration / Numbering” tab of the Style dialogue, in the “Format description” field.
I’m sorry, but this is not working for me. I’ve followed every step of your instructions but all I get is a total dog’s breakfast, with the text showing in the Table of Contents. There has to be a simpler way.
Or have you missed a step in your instructions?
I really like the look of Papyrus and have had it sitting on my computer for ages but I haven’t used it yet because this is just frustrating me. I absolutely MUST have a Prologue - I’ve written a family saga which stretches over a century in time.
It’s okay! After days and days of fidgeting and fiddling about, I think I’ve got it!
I went in to try again this morning so I could take a screenshot and, suddenly, the penny dropped - when ‘Chapter 1’ disappeared above the text, I had to actually replace it with ‘Prologue’ in the text section. I was trying to replace it in either the chapters section on the left, or in the Table of Contents section - duh!
What a relief!
Thanks for your attention to the problem. I’m away now
